No confession from Armstrong during Livestrong speech

Lance Armstrong made his first public speech on Friday night since evidence of his doping past was sent to the UCI and made public by the US Anti-Doping Agency. The Texan appeared at a gala fundraiser for his Livestrong cancer foundation on Friday night, to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the charity.

The disgraced cyclist, who on Wednesday stepped down as chairperson of the Livestrong board said, "This mission is bigger than me. It's bigger than any individual”.

He has been in the spotlight due to the release of 1000 pages of evidence against him and his US Postal Service team, and some had predicted that he might make an admission. However that did not happen, with the 41 year old speaking briefly about his own situation before moving on to talking about the foundation.

"It's been an interesting couple of weeks. It's been a difficult couple of weeks for me and my family, my friends and this foundation. I get asked a lot…’man, how you doing?’ And I say every time, and I mean it, ‘I say, 'I've been better, but I've also been worse.’

The event was attended by 1,500 guests at $1,000 a head. Livestrong is expected to raise $2.5 million from the dinner. Celebrities in attendance included musicians Norah Jones and Stephen Marley and actors Sean Penn, Matthew McConaughey and Robin Williams. Presumably referring to the negative headlines surrounding him, he vowed that the federation would persist. “We will not be deterred; we will move forward.”

Armstrong concluded his speech by saying "Let's have a hell of a good time tonight."

The week has been a rough one for Armstrong with sponsors Nike, Trek, Giro, FRS, RadioShack, Honey Stinger, SRAM and Anheuser-Busch all dropping him. More tough times may await on Monday when the UCI will rule on the USADA report.

The two options are to back the USADA sanctions, which impose a lifetime ban on Armstrong and strip him from all results since August 1998, or to appeal the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The UCI has previously indicated that it is unlikely to do the latter.